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President Obama’s Midwest bus tour and the Republican straw poll in Iowa marked the beginning of the 2012 campaign. However, neither the president nor any of the Iowa contestants commanded the attention paid to the entry of Texas Governor Rick Perry into the contest for the Republican nomination. In the first of a periodic series of columns on the presidential candidates, The Weekender examines Perry and whether his intemperate criticism of Obama and Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke are merely Texas tough guy talk or an important indication of what this candidate really stands for and the path he would follow if elected.

Perry upstaged President Obama and Iowa straw poll winner Michelle Bachman by launching his candidacy with a prayer rally called “The Response” at Reliant Stadium in Houston and later questioning the president’s patriotism and suggesting that Fed Chairman Bernanke’s actions were “treacherous” and “treasonous” and that he “would be treated pretty ugly down in Texas.”

The prayer rally and Perry’s inflammatory statements garnered him most of the press, sucked the air out of the Iowa contest and got many Republicans annoyed and nervous, notably the George W. Bush braintrust. But the more important issue is whether Perry’s avowed faith connects to the candidate’s nasty and threatening comments and reveals a weltanschauung or worldview. That is the type of fancy word that Perry likes to remind people he doesn’t understand as he brags that he didn’t go to Yale, like the last president from Texas.

Neither The Weekender nor anyone else can truly know what resides in another person’s heart. But Perry’s faith (one he apparently must profess in a packed football stadium and to millions more watching TV) seems to connect perfectly to his contempt for other government officials and his pronouncement that they deserve physical punishment.

The Response prayer rally was organized for Perry by “The Call” led by Lou Engle and the International House of Prayer led by Mike Bickel. These highly political evangelical Protestant ministries and their “apostle” leaders are major components of a movement referred to as the New Apostolic Reformation. NAR ministries and leaders have been closely associated and traveled throughout Texas with Perry since 2002. Other NAR leaders who accompanied Perry in his spiritual/political journey are apostle Alice Patterson and “historian” David Barton. Patterson recently published “Bridging the Racial and Political Divide,” a book that describes a decade-long relationship with Perry and explains that the Democratic Party is controlled by a “demonic” structure. Barton is best known for his historical works, including “The Myth of Separation,” explaining that America’s founding fathers had no intention of separating church from state. The Weekender, who has practiced Constitutional law before the U.S. Supreme Court, notes that those founding fathers wrote the first clause of the First Amendment to the Constitution, which states “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion …” and that clause in The Bill of Rights has been interpreted by the Supreme Court for more than 200 years as requiring the separation of church from state.

NAR apostles preach that most institutions in the world, public and private, are run by demons under the hierarchy of Satan. It’s not just the Democratic Party, but most others as well, specifically Islam and the Roman Catholic Church, sometimes referred to as “The Great Harlot.” Apostle Mike Bickle, who flanked Rick Perry at The Response, has explained that Oprah Winfrey (a nominal Protestant) is the “forerunner” of the Great Harlot, an apostate religion that will wage war against the forces of Jesus at end times. As the leading edge of the “Harlot Movement,” Oprah preaches tolerance — a transitional phase before the full ugliness and truth about Satan’s dominion over the Harlot is revealed at the end of time.

People within NAR ministries are required to wage spiritual warfare and become martyrs in the battles against these demonic institutions. One battlefield was a 2008 Call rally in San Diego’s Qualcomm Stadium in support of Proposition 8. The Prop 8 ballot initiative rescinded the right to same sex marriage that briefly existed in California. In the run up to that rally, Call operatives went into gay communities to evangelize and become martyrs in the physical confrontations that ensued.

A second imminent battle, “The Call Detroit,” will take place on Nov. 11 near Dearborn, Michigan and its large Muslim population to fight “the demonic spirit of Islam.” A third, battle is being waged by The Call in Uganda, where the ministry promotes an “Anti-Homosexuality” bill pending in the Ugandan legislature. The bill provides for capital punishment for certain homosexual acts and criminal prosecution of those who tolerate homosexuality.

These battles and martyrs are necessary to prepare the world for the return of Jesus, but in and of themselves are not sufficient. Three very specific things must occur before the Second Coming. There must be an end to the “shedding of innocent blood” (abortion). Second, sexual immorality (homosexual conduct) must cease. Third, a critical mass of Jews in Israel must accept Jesus as their savior. Among the major speakers and Perry flankers at The Response was “Messianic” Rabbi Marty Waldman, who has recognized Jesus as his savior.

Perry’s professed faith matches perfectly with his political actions and statements. He dismisses the false science of global warming and climate change — again contrasting himself with the fancy Yalie who proceeded him as governor of Texas. He doesn’t buy the “theory” of evolution. Although he hasn’t specifically referred to his opponents as demons (not yet), he demonizes public officials with analogous secular terms such as “treasonous” and by questioning their love of country. Perry won’t tolerate them or those who would and invokes the army of like-minded Texans who would inflict physical punishment on a treasonous Fed chairman.

The Weekender wants to say this as clearly as he can. Demagogues like Perry, exercising their rights under the part of the First Amendment that they apparently have read, create an atmosphere which makes it more likely that some nut like Jared Loughner will take a shot at Bernanke, the president or others viewed as being treasonous, unpatriotic and well — demonic. The mainstream press and the political establishment (first and foremost our overly timid president) gave Sarah Palin and Sharon Angle an undeserved break after the January 2011 Arizona shooting spree that left six dead and badly wounded Congresswoman Gabriele Gifford. Prior to the massacre, Palin had placed Gifford under cross hairs in political ads and exhorted her opponents not to “retreat, instead reload.” Angle, then a candidate for the U.S. Senate from Nevada, reminded supporters that “if this Congress keeps going the way it is, people are really looking towards those Second Amendment remedies” (referring to the Constitution’s provision concerning the right to bear arms).

So hear O Chatham, Texas Governor Rick Perry has clearly told you who he is and what he would try to do if he becomes president. Ignore him and his faith at your peril.

Comments

September 15, 2011 5:43 PM EDT

Religion is getting a bad wrap. I thought love was supposed to be top billing. The tone of this report does not reflect any kindness from Perry. Was this commentary truly refective of what happened? I don't know... hard to believe anyone these days as all seems so one-sided.

Regular contributor to the Sunday "Perspectives" (Editorial) section of Hearst's Albany Times Union with op-eds on government, law and public policy. Read and comment at timesunion.com and on this website. "The Weekender" social commentary column appears on ccSCOOP.com, Columbia County's Home on the Web, and past columns are archived on this website under the Op-Ed button.

A book about the ground-breaking case that shook the business and legal worlds to their very cores, New York-based law firm Constantine & Partners sought to end a devastating credit monopoly that personally touched millions of consumers. Its efforts culminated in the largest federal antitrust settlement in U.S. history.

Journal of the Plague Year
The March 10, 2008 disclosure that Governor Eliot Spitzer patronized prostitutes shocked admirers around the world who had celebrated him as the "Sheriff of Wall Street" and a likely future president. Ironically, the author's disillusionment with Spitzer had begun to disappear 15 hours earlier, when Spitzer confessed to him what others would soon learn in a media storm of unprecedented intensity. Journal of the Plague Year is Constantine's intimate account of the 17 calamitous months preceding the March 2008 revelation and the futile 61 hour battle waged by the author and the governor's wife to persuade Spitzer not to resign, but to instead fulfill promises made to the voters who had elected him in a record landslide.

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